LEXINGTON, Ky. -- What we learned as Kentucky stormed through an extra five minutes and earned an essential 90-83 overtime victory over new SEC rival Missouri on a raucous Saturday evening at Rupp Arena:

UK is not starting over

A prominent NCAA Tournament bracket analyst -- Joe Lunardi of ESPN -- has been saying in radio interviews that Kentucky essentially started at 0-0 when it visited Tennessee for last Saturday’s road game, its first following the knee injury that ended the season of freshman star Nerlens Noel.

That’s simply not true.

Kentucky is not 2-1. Kentucky is 19-8 overall and 10-4 in SEC play. There certainly is an emphasis on these last several games. For the Wildcats to make the NCAA Tournament, they must show they still are a proficient team without Noel. But the Selection Committee understands it is not reasonable to assume that Noel was the only reason the Wildcats won the games they did before his injury, and it will carry that understanding into deliberations in a couple of weeks.

It also will carry the memory of this game, in which the Wildcats rallied from a 13-point first-half deficit and made numerous clutch plays in overtime. Included was a sizzling baseline cut by freshman guard Archie Goodwin that opened him for a feed from point guard Ryan Harrow; Goodwin’s layup gave UK an overtime lead it never surrendered.

UK shooting guard Julius Mays made four consecutive foul shots to seal the game, giving him a team-high 24 points.

The Wildcats still have a huge game at Arkansas, which has been nearly impossible to beat at Bud Walton Arena, as well as a season-ending visit from Florida and the SEC Tournament. Whether they are an NCAA team will be established in those games, in part because they hadn’t proven it before Noel was injured.

There’s still time for Poythress

Every now and then we’ve seen these signs from UK freshman forward Alex Poythress: the home game against LSU, the second half at Ole Miss. But mostly he has played as though trapped in some sort of dream sequence from “Inception.”

Before Saturday night, Poythress had played six games in February and hadn’t reached double-figures once, not even in the two after the injury to Noel made more minutes and touches available. Even through all of that, he was projected as a lottery pick by DraftExpress.com, which shows those folks have the stamina of a champion triathlete.

Even with this game, he still doesn’t look like he belongs on anyone’s 2013-14 NBA roster, but Poythress played like he wants to be part of the 2013 NCAA Tournament, certainly.

When Poythress drove the right baseline and powered in a layup with 5:59 remaining, Poythress was 8-of-9 from the field and had 19 points and seven rebounds. He finished with 21 points and only missed one more shot.

Bowers is finding his form

Since returning from a knee injury that knocked him out of five midseason games, Missouri power forward Laurence Bowers has not been as productive as early in the season.

He was an All-American level player before the injury, with four double-doubles and only one game of fewer than 11 points. Since his return, Bowers had attempted double-figure shots only twice, and in one of those went 1-of-10 from the field.

Bowers isn’t the star he was before getting hurt, but in the first half against Kentucky he was quietly efficient, ringing up eight points on 3-of-5 shooting and contributing five rebounds and a steal. He finished the game with 13 points.

His catch-and-finish on a fast-break layup with 13:12 remaining was the work of a gifted athlete and basketball player. His recovery to the Laurence Bowers that began the season remains the most important element of Mizzou’s March potential.

Oriakhi can score

Sometimes the “what we learned” designation can be misleading. Sometimes it’s more like “what was amplified.” This deep into a season, we’re not seeing these teams for the first time. We know a lot by now.

This truly is something we learned, though, Saturday night.

Alex Oriakhi put 22 on Ole Miss a couple weeks ago, but the Rebels are 75th in the nation in defense efficiency, so that might not have been the best measure. He has been more the player who entered with three consecutive single-figure games, the guy who only had attempted 10-plus shots four times all season.

And yet by the 12:40 mark of the second half, Kentucky had to double-team Oriakhi when he caught the ball in the post.

For a player with an NCAA championship ring -- he was an integral part of that championship Connecticut won in 2011 -- Oriakhi has been something of a maddening player. He has the body of an NBA power forward and sometimes even the game, but often as not his attention to detail has drifted. He admitted as much as the 2011 Final Four, and that was when he was playing his best.

Oriakhi finished Saturday night’s game with 16 points and 15 rebounds. If he performs like this the next several weeks, Mizzou’s NCAA Tournament could last a good bit longer than last year’s.

UK’s other issue

Who’s missing is not the Wildcats’ only problem. Against a team ranked 54th in defensive efficiency, Kentucky operated at essentially a point-per-minute pace for the first 16 minutes.

The Wildcats missed all seven of their 3-point attempts in that stretch, and only Harrow and Poythress even were able to score. The other five rotation players were a combined 0-for-10 from the field.

When the Wildcats finally ran a low-post set to forward Kyle Wiltjer out of the four-minute timeout, he bounced it a couple times to draw a defender away from Mays. His 3-pointer became the first UK basket not scored by Harrow or Poythress and brought UK back to a 28-22 deficit. That seemed to change the evening for the Kentucky offense -- and particularly for Harrow, who broke out of a funk and began facilitating a sold offensive attack.

The Wildcats ended the game shooting 50.8 percent from the field, and Harrow had 16 points, six assists and only two turnovers. Oh, and eight rebounds, too.

He’s still Phil Pressey

With 35 seconds left in the half and Kentucky down 32-27, Harrow soft-pedaled a drive attempt that might have been successful if transacted more aggressively, and Pressey pulled down the offensive rebound.

We repeat: 35 seconds.

If anyone in the building is supposed to know time/score at that point, it’s the guy in charge of the offense. The play at that point is, almost without exception, to hold the ball for the final shot attempt of the half. At worst, Mizzou would have been ahead by five. At best, it might have been up by eight.

Instead, Pressey raced to the opposite end of the floor, attempted a layup and watched it roll off the rim. Wiltjer rebounded and was fouled almost immediately, then made the two free throws.

Well, it wouldn’t be a Pressey sequence if he didn’t squeeze in something heroic, so he answered those foul shots with a top-key 3-pointer. But he did it early enough -- officially with nine seconds remaining -- that Kentucky was able to zip the ball upcourt for a fast-break dunk by Willie Cauley-Stein.

So the net result of Pressey’s miscalculation was Kentucky headed to its locker room down only 35-31. Given the circumstances, the Wildcats couldn’t have asked for much better.

Pressey has a short memory, though. He just moves on.

Pressey’s two second-half 3s were both essential in keeping the Tigers in contact. He also ran a pick-and-roll with Oriakhi at the 3:08 mark that should be the illustration on a coaching tape of how to run the pick-and-roll, executed a perfect fast-break dump-off to Bowers that cut the deficit to a basket and then stole the ball right from Goodwin’s hands in the middle of the UK lane, dashed to the opposite end and fed wing Keion Bell for a layup that tied the game at 71-all. His fast-break layup with 55.2 seconds remaining put Mizzou in front by a bucket.

And in overtime, we saw again what can happen to Pressey at the end of a game. Inside the final minute, he had the ball on the right wing and gave up his dribble, then jumped to launch an ill-advised shot, only to lose his grip and then try to recover with a wild pass to no one in particular. The ball rolled toward midcourt, where it was collected by Poythress, who drove until fouled. His two free throws made it 83-79 UK.